A Summoning, Part XLIX

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Part XLIX
~Sun~

The green-haired dragon-girl showed up to the game session Sunday afternoon slightly late, with a small smile on her face.

"Welcome, welcome," Zotha said, waving her inside. "I've got some food ready~."

"Hey, you look like you're in a pretty good mood," Dai said from his position already slouched way back on what had become his usual couch ever since their venue changed to the goddess's domain.

Thomas shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. Things have been going well with Stella lately, and..just life in general I guess. Also: Watch this..." Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she clasped her hands together, pressing their palms hard against each other. And then...with a dark green glow around her body, her form shifted, quickly losing its curves and gaining some height, until Thomas had turned into more or less a draconic version of how he had looked before Zotha awakened him. His hair was still the same shade of green, and his eyes still very much non-human.

"Oh, you figured out how to transform yourself!"

"Nice work," the goddess said, applauding. "I suppose Frelye's advice really came in handy."

"Yeah—thank you for that," he said, looking over at her. His friend's appearance had grown increasingly mercurial in the last couple of weeks, and right now she was looking fairly draconic herself: scaly wings, scaly tail, razor-sharp teeth lining her mouth. "Although—Stella definitely helped me the most," he said, putting a hand behind his head. "She let me uh..experiment on her first."
"Oh, yeah?" Dai sat up. "It looks like you had some fun with that too, hahah!" he said, having not missed the slight blush appearing on his friend's face.

Thankfully, his response to this ribbing wasn't nearly as violent as it had been at one lunch recently. He just shrugged and said, "Yeah, yeah...let's get on with it, huh?" He went over and grabbed some meat, stuffing it into his mouth without really thinking about it. He was...kind of getting used to everything that came with being a dragon, it seemed.

---

Early Saturday afternoon, Graham walked up behind her granddaughter, coming up beside her to grab her into a brief hug. Rachel's feline ears were perfectly capable of hearing her trying to sneak up, so she'd set her pencil down well ahead of the 'attack', and happily returned the hug from the kitchen chair. "Hey there, little genius. Still working on your homework, I suppose?" Graham asked, then let go and took a couple of steps back.

"Yeah, but I think I'll be done by suppertime. You off to—hey, has your tail finished splitting?"

"Hmmn, not quite," she said, shaking her head. "I checked it in the shower this mornin'—still an inch or two left, I think." But from her front, it did look like two completely separate tails. "Anyhow, yes, I was just about to go, uh, 'hang out' with Damon for a bit. Oughta be back by suppertime, or you can call to remind me if I'm not."
"Okay. I should be fine here, so—have fun!"
"Sure..." Graham paused a moment in place, then quickly put out her hand to gently ruffle Rachel's hair a bit. "Heheh! See you later, dear!"
"Yeah, same!"

---

Jess's whole 'make new friends' concept had gone reasonably well Thursday night, Prama decided. Maybe she was onto something; Fel was kind of a weirdo, but not so bad to talk with—and she might even be a decent business contact if they ever figured out who she really was. Right, just like Jess had said: If Prama wanted the idea she'd been cooking for a while to work...ironically, she'd need to get more comfortable around people anyway. Maybe today was the right day to propose it to Boreas...if she seemed to be in a good enough mood, at least.

Since she didn't share a lunch time on Fridays with anyone she knew all that well, she'd been either ducking out to her dorm room, finding a corner to eat alone, or—what she considered the worst case—hanging out with some of the 'lower ranking' former cult members, just listening to their chatter and quietly mumbling in response. Today was the day to put an end to that. She would sit with someone she didn't know, and actually talk to them! Somehow.

After putting together her tray of food, she went looking around, trying to decide what the best approach to take was. Well, the place was quite busy this time of day, so a lot of tables were packed with people. She really didn't feel ready to deal with more than one or two strangers right now, at least in terms of an actual conversation. Eventually she managed to pick out a good target: A guy sitting at a booth alone. There were very few open seats near that spot, and zero open tables, so he'd believe the excuse that she just wanted somewhere to sit. So she walked up in front of the booth and...

And...

Stood there for at least an entire minute. It was bad enough that she was feeling too shy to say anything, but he seemed to be entirely inattentive to his surroundings, instead just staring down at his food as he ate. Prama thought Notice me! at least two or three times in his general direction during that time period, but evidently Jess and Zotha's telepathy had still failed to rub off onto her. There was simply nothing else for it. If she wanted to sit here and eat...if she wanted to meet this new person...she'd have to be the one to say something first.

"Uh, um." Well, that was a start, at least. She turned out to be close enough, and his hearing good enough, that her quiet stammering caught his attention. He looked up at her, and she felt her heart rate pick up involuntarily. He had dark brown hair and eyes, a basically average build, a fairly handsome face. Looked like there was some Japanese in his family tree.
"Oh, hey, sorry. You, need a seat?" he said, gesturing to the spot across from him. Prama silently nodded. "Go ahead, I won't bother ya."

She slid into the seat across from him, mulling over that last statement. That meant..if she wanted bother, if she wanted a conversation, she would have to initiate it. That was bad! She still couldn't even squeeze a full word out! Besides, he was at least halfway finished eating by now, so if she took too long to try to say something, he'd just silently get up and leave.

Prama took a long sip of her drink, trying to steel herself. "Uh—P. Pr. Praah."
"Huh?" He looked up at her, which made it even worse; she jumped slightly. "Oh, sorry, thought you were talking to me."
"P-p-prama!" she forced out, maybe a little too loud. And then squeaked—maybe he didn't entirely hear this part but made it out from context—"is my name."

"Oh. Logan," he said. "Nice to meet you, I guess."
"Mmh."

After taking a few bites of food, and hoping that saying something to him already would make her a little less nervous, she tried to say some more. "I, I'm. En, engineering major. T-though, I'm th-thinking about adding business. A-advertising. A-and I'm working...um. An internship." The last hesitation was more because she wasn't sure about this guy's position relative to the veil, and needed a way to say she was an apprentice alchemist that wouldn't sound insane.

"Wow, that's a lot. I'm just doing web dev," Logan said. "Uh, are you sure you're okay? You don't have to force yourself to talk to me."
"N-no, it's. I-I have some..issues, but I need to get over them," she said.
He sort of tilted his head with a concerned look. "I know people say it's good to try to heal mental problems and stuff, but like, not everyone can, right?"

"Th-this is definitely...I-I'm perfectly n-n-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnormal, around people I already kn. Know," she said.

"Okay, okay."

She tried to engage her genius mind, as a way to talk more normally. That had worked with Fel the night before, and entirely by accident. What had he just said? Web dev....web dev! She needed someone who could do web dev! Not that she couldn't figure out how to make a website functional by herself, but if she had access to someone whose entire education was in that...!

"Y-you, uh. What classes, does your major involve? M, mostly programming?"
"Oh, nah," Logan shook his head slightly. "I'm actually doing tons of art classes, more than anything else. Some of my friends say I'm doing 'graphic design lite'. But, I've got just enough of a logical brain to make that HTML-five work properly...most of the time."

"Do you. Have a plan for after gruh. Graduation? Jobs lined up?"
"Oooh, not exactly," he said with a slight, performative wince. "I mean—it's my junior year right now, and if I fail out of one of my tough classes, I'm gonna be a super-senior before I need to worry about that," Logan said. "I've been to some job fairs and stuff; it sounds like it won't be that hard. But...I dunno, I guess an internship like you've got would be better? It's just a little too much work for me, all at once."

He might have thought he was being self-deprecating, but so far Logan was saying exactly what Prama wanted to hear. "Wh. What class, exactly?" She was stammering less and less..good!

"Huh?"
"Which class are you having trouble with?"
"Oh..uh. Math. Hahah, like I said, I have 'just enough' of a logical brain, sooo...not that much."

"I do..."

Prama had kind of mumbled that last statement to herself, so of course he hadn't heard it. Logan sat up slightly. "What was that? Sorry, it's getting louder in here I think."
Rather than repeating herself, Prama sat up straight for the first time in their entire conversation and said, "You're lucky to meet me, now."

"Uh..how so?" Logan said, taken slightly aback by her sudden display of confidence.

"I am a genius. I can get you through that class easily if you're anything other than a total idiot."
"Uh—so you're offering? I mean, do you have time for that?"
"I'm something of an expert at managing my time," she said.

"But you—are you saying you want to do professional tutoring for me? I don't, uh, get much allowance..."
"No, don't get me wrong. I'm not in need of money right now—I have a few friends who are extremely wealthy, you see. In exchange, though...maybe you can show me some of what you know about making websites?" she said, starting to twirl one of her long braids a little bit between her fingers. "Demonstrate your skills for me a little bit."

"Uh, that's a kinda weird thing for you to want, but..sure, I could do that easy. If you, really wouldn't mind helping me a little bit."
"No problem. This arrangement should be mutually beneficial," Prama said with a sweet smile.

"H-hahah..." Logan laughed slightly nervously. He was pleased, but also a little bit scared now. She couldn't blame him, since from his perspective her entire personality must have seemed to change. But his exact feelings right now didn't matter, as long as she still had him on the hook.

---

The white-haired Neko knocked on the front door, and it was Onida who let her in this time. They exchanged a brief greeting, but the catgirl needed no prompting at all afterward to go straight up the stairs and into Damon's room. "Heey, Graham~!" she said, hurrying over and pulling her into a hug. The Neko purred, hugging her back for a moment, and they went over to the couch. They picked out a game and sat side-by-side on the couch, Graham gently curling her tail around the wolf-girl's own. Then they played for a while, chatting happily back and forth.

She felt happier than she could remember being since the death of her wife. A brand new life seemed to have opened up to her out of nowhere; in the time from becoming physically young again until now, she felt like she'd also gotten mentally young too—in all of the best ways. And it was partially thanks to Damon, Sam, and their other online friends. In the midst of some relatively shallow, happy thoughts about the present moment, Graham's mind flickered through this bit of reflection, and came to the end of it with a strange conclusion: If only I could give this to someone else, too. The same way that Zotha had made her healthy, then young again, offering her the opportunity to meet this beautiful young woman and join those helping her to recover...it'd be nice to give others similar sorts of opportunities. To have that kind of power, and use it for the benefit of others in general.

Some time later, Graham had just won a round of their third game of the afternoon. "Aww, that was just lucky!" Damon said, faux-complaining.

"If luck ain't a skill, then taking advantage of it is," the Neko replied smugly.

"Hmph. One more round! I'll win this one!"
"So—best out of three?"
"Yeah, that!"

Damon slumped slightly, her ears going down, after she lost the next round too. "Aww..I think you're just getting too good for me."

"I'd never be too good for you~," Graham responded immediately, putting her hand on top of the werewolf's head.
Damon, of course, flushed immediately. "I-I didn't mean like that! Pffheehee..!" Giggling, she grabbed the catgirl into a close hug.
"Ah~! Hello there.."
"Uh, um. W-wasn't really thinking when I did thaaat..." Her tail was starting to wag vigorously, making it hard for the Neko to keep her tail-ends around it.

"Maybe your mind wasn't, but I'm sure your body was," Graham said, gently running a hand through the wolf-girl's hair.

"O-oh..r-rfh..!"
"You'd like some more petting, wouldn't you? I know I would..."

"Uh..s-sure..!"

With that, they were off. Damon turned and leaned back until she was lying down on the couch with Graham on top of her, and they pet each other's ears, each nuzzling the other's cheeks affectionately. "Mrr~rrrh.." The catgirl purred happily, enjoying the sound of the other girl softly barking and yipping back. She kept both ends of her tail twisted around the wolf-girl's fluffy tail, letting its continued wagging rub their fur together. This was bliss...!

After a moment, she did notice something a little strange. While mutually petting the werewolf was wonderful and exciting, she felt somehow...even more excited than that. More specifically, it was a feeling of anticipation, like something was about to happen—even though exactly what didn't occur to her at all. For a little while, that excitement seemed to slowly build up, until...

"M-mro~owh..a-ah..?" It came as somehow a complete surprise to her when the base of her tail erupted in a sudden burst of tingling. She felt a rush of movement back there, as that entire part of her tail broke apart at once, the one forked tail finally becoming two. "O-oh...!" It sent a wave of tingling out across her body from the point in her spine where both bases now met, a little similar to something she'd felt back when first turning into a young woman...yet there was something different about this one that she couldn't quite put her finger on. When it reached her thighs and forearms, it seemed to become especially intense from that point downward on each limb.

Graham felt an extremely strong urge to stretch her body out—especially her legs—and when she did, she felt a wonderful feeling, like her entire body had been tense for so long, but was now being made to fully relax. "M-mrr~rrrRRRrrhh..!" It came alongside a wave of fuzzy, girly sensations between her legs that had already been greatly threatened just from being on top of Damon. But this was no ordinary stretch, for she found herself actually taking up more and more room, her legs soon reaching out past an armrest that her feet had previously failed to touch.

"Ah, aa~aah..! Mmmh, mrrrr~rrrh..!" Besides getting taller, Graham's chest was pushing forward, and her hips and thighs outward...she was becoming curvier and bustier too! This also brought on more feminine enjoyment, and she could make out the tone of her voice deepening ever-so-slightly each time she cried out in response to that. However, she also heard the sound of something tearing, as the tingling across her upper arms and most of her legs continued unabated; her clothes tried to resist the rapid growth her body was undergoing, and lost. Even her leggings weren't safe, as she felt an increasingly-thick bunch of hairs on her lower legs being exposed to the open air—as well as the feeling of Damon's legs directly touching their upper two-thirds or so.

"M-mro~oowh..! O-o~ooh...!" As the steady growth of her body continued, Graham felt like she was beginning to understand something. That tingling, stretching, and shifting..it was different from when she'd been youthened by Zotha in a very important way. Back then, it had been something that another person's power had done, but this...this wasn't coming from the outside. The thing that was changing her now, was herself. And...she was beginning to understand how it was working. The sensations of change were increasingly coming with a gain of knowledge, a realization of a power that had been waiting, buried deep inside her, for at least as long as she'd been a Neko...if not even longer.

"Mmh—mm~mhh..." Graham's form began to settle into place, but not without a brief, slight tensing all over which rapidly strengthened and toned all of her muscles. "Aah—! Mm~mmmnnh.." Her voice had descended into a mid-range alto, a mature but womanly tone now ringing from her throat, as she pulled some now fur-covered arms close around the smaller girl, pressing her face hard into Damon's cheek and nuzzling her just a little bit more.

"Aah...r-rfh..g-grrfh...mmnfh..!" Damon was wriggling around, then shivered with delight—but she had been trying to say something for a second there. Graham enjoyed herself for just a little bit longer, as the understanding of the power that had changed her, her power now, settled fully into place. She also realized that her clothes were in tatters—her skirt had sort of survived but come apart; her top was barely decent, and her bra a lost cause. Somehow her underwear had held on without snapping apart, or perhaps she'd semi-unconsciously made it grow to continue fitting her. So pulling off of Damon now would expose an awful lot of her skin to the wolf-girl's view...but then, she could fix that if she so desired...

"Mrr~rrnh." Graham finally decided to have mercy, and peeled herself up off of the wolf-girl, making her way to a properly seated position. Damon carefully pulled herself up to the opposite side, barely finding enough room for herself. For now, the Neko just wove what was left of her clothes together into some shorts and a tank top; she could remake it into something more resembling its original form later. Although she now realized that not only were her upper arms and her legs from the thighs down were covered in thick white fur, but that fur ended with slightly paw-like hands and very paw-like feet. Her lower limbs being in that state would make wearing any kind of socks or shoes quite challenging, let alone leggings.

"Uh—um." Damon finally hopped to her feet rather than continuing to try to squeeze herself into that corner of the couch. "Y-y-you grew!!!"

"Mmhmm~..I really did, huh?" she said, spreading her arms and legs and tails out—still feeling a little bit of that stretching urge from before. "I suppose...this is what happens when a Neko's tail finishes splitting?"

"Your legs are all furry!" Damon observed helpfully, pointing.
"They are...but they can not be, if I like," she said. With a simple twitch of her will, Graham's arms and legs went back to a fully-human look. Then she hopped up onto her feet.

What was that word Zotha had used before...'Nekomata'? It seemed like that was what she'd become, including all of the promised power. Besides the thoughts she'd had earlier about sharing her newfound youth with others, she was now getting some ideas on how to use it to have some fun with the werewolf right in front of her...

"Well, I guess I'm a little taller than you now," she said (knowing it was something of an understatement; standing up had given Damon a quite direct view of her expanded breasts), "but this isn't such a bad look, is it?"
"U-uhm..n-no, you're..super hot like that..!" the wolf-girl admitted. "M-maybe too hot!"

"Heehee~.." The Nekomata reached across and ruffled Damon's hair a little bit. "Say..if I made you a man right now..what would you do?"
"A-a man? I-I dunno, I haven't been um—male, s-since turning into a werewolf."

Graham moved her hands from Damon's hair to one of her ears, and let the other hand join in too. "Well, sure, but, what do you think you'd like to do, hm~mn?"

"Rrfh..! Uh. I-I'd definitely just wanna grab you in my arms and kiss you and..uhm." Damon's blush grew even brighter. "Th-then uh...!"

"Awh, I'm sure you'll be a perfect gentleman for me~..."

With no further warning, the Nekomata exercised her power on Damon, shifting her from female to male. "W-wha—aa~aaah...!" She grew up to Graham's height—still a little short for a man—quickly lost all of her curves, and then changed sex. Since the werewolf was in the habit of wearing shirts that had fit her original form, only her underwear needed to be shifted into a pair of boxers for everything to fit. "O-oh..r-rfh..!" The shirt was still a little loose on him, but his face had reshaped to become a little more handsome—while still looking fairly cute, framed by the same long brown hair as ever.

He was left with her still petting his ears. "G-graham...th-this is kinda d-dangerous," he said, visibly trying to get used to the now-strange feeling of being male, and the mid-tenor voice coming out of his throat.
"I'm feeling pretty confident I can take it," the two-tailed catgirl assured him.
"I-I...rrrrRRRUFH!" he suddenly let out a deep bark and pounced at her, grabbing her in his arms—which proved to be quite strong now. And he aggressively pushed his lips onto hers, forcing a kiss.
"Mmm~mmh.." Graham caught him in her arms, holding him back just as tightly, and willingly returned the kiss. Seeing that she wasn't resisting him, the werewolf pushed for more passion, and she gave that too. Only after both of them were well and truly out of breath did Damon finally pull himself off of her—and then only barely leaving enough room for them to breathe, making the hot huffs of his rapid panting hit her cheek.

"You really do have a wild animal in there, hmmn? I think I could get used to that," Graham said, running a hand down through his hair. She'd used her newfound powers to get her breath back near-instantly, which was admittedly very unfair. "I love you, dear~..."

"Hffh...ffh..I-I...rrfh..l-love you...hafffh...t-too..." he said.

"That's wonderful.." She put the tip of her nose on his, waited just long enough for him to catch his breath, and kissed him again. After a brief instant of surprise, he went back to the aggressive passion he'd displayed in the first one.

It was obvious Damon's 'wild side', at least while he was male, would want quite a bit more, but Graham was pretty sure he didn't really want to go quite that fast—and neither did she. So, for now, she began shifting him back to being a girl. No sooner had he begun changing than that aggression started to ebb away. "M-mrr~rrfh..!" His voice audibly shifted as he shrank, his weight entering her arms as his feet lifted off of the floor. Graham continued to passionately kiss him, and now he was submissively returning the kiss instead, as his masculinity steadily drained away. Finally, with a loud smack, she pulled out of the kiss, and Damon let out a high, cute, soft "Aah—!" as he turned back into a girl, followed by a helpless "A-aa~aahnn..." as her curves pushed back out into place, and no doubth all of the excitement the Nekomata had given her as a boy was translated into a girl's kind of enjoyment.

Graham waited patiently for the wolf-girl to get her breath back. "Aah..I-I, um...d-d-don't know if I could stand up right now, if you dropped me.." Damon admitted.
"Heheh..let's just set you back down on the couch then, my dear~..." Graham turend and gently placed the wolf-girl down on one side of the couch, then sat herself down on the other. Then...

"Mrr~rrh." Letting out a soft purr, the Nekomata shrank herself back to her original proportions—or, at least, the ones she'd had walking into the werewolves' house an hour or two earlier. Her deeper voice and muscle tone she kept, but the latter was mostly hidden away when she rearranged her clothes, and the shreds of her leggings, back into the outfit she'd come in with, as well.

"Uh...w-wow, you can just do that now?" Damon said.
"If I could turn you into a man, this much is easy. But it does feel like that look you saw me in first, fur on my arms and legs and all, is the 'real me' now. But.." She gestured to herself. "This is still awful comfortable to me, though—I mean, I'd just gotten used to being this height. Leeet's just say that 'grown up' form is a secret between the two of us...for noo~ow."
"Uh—um. S-sure."

"Well, I think we'd left off somewhere before all that happened," Graham said.

"Oh..y-yeah?" Damon turned her head briefly to the screen, then back to the catgirl. "I-I guess you won, though..."
"Oh, I didn't mean that," the Nekomata said, scooting over next to the werewolf and pulling her arms up around her.
"O-ohh..uh, s-sure..." Graham had already started purring by this point, in her now-deeper voice, so Damon hardly had a choice but to start up petting and nuzzling her again.

The kisses had been amazing, but the two of them needed to cool things off a little bit before fully disengaging to go back to the video games—to keep that from being too awkward. At least, that was what Graham had been thinking, but it looked like they might be keeping this up until almost suppertime...

---

Late into Monday morning, two Kitsune were walking through the library toward where they'd agreed to meet with a dragon and a celestial. They paused at the sight of a familiar face.

"Soooo...is Prama dating that guy?" Steph asked, gesturing at the glass doors to one of the small study rooms.
"She says she's just 'tutoring' him," Andrew answered with a shrug. "Though..."
"'Though'?"
"It feels like he's...two or three inches from awakening as a Kitsune. Can you feel that kinda thing?"
"Sometimes. I'd guess you've got a better sense for it than I do."

They started walking again, Andrew leading the way. "Do you think...I should tell her?"

Steph held up four fingers of his left hand. "Rule number four of being a Kitsune: Do whatever you think will cause more chaos."
"That's..not rule number one?"
"No, that's never tell anyone how many tails you have! We've been over this."
"But I thought that was number three."

"Rule number three is to hide your shed fur whenever possible."
"You definitely told me that was number four before!"

---

And so the third "loop" kicks off with a bang! Graham's new form is a great example of where I find image generation particularly liberating. In this setting, full-fledged Nekomata were always supposed to look kind of like that, but good luck finding a drawn image that has all the right traits, especially since I'd obviously already established her hair and eye colors, and wanted a bunch of other particulars besides. This image wasn't easy to find this way, but it was possible, and I'm glad for that.